Re: Can't get the color with Illustrator
Re: Can't get the color with Illustrator
- Subject: Re: Can't get the color with Illustrator
- From: Chris Murphy <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 09:22:29 -0600
On Monday, June 23, 2003, at 11:00 PM, David Creamer
<email@hidden> writes:
Make an RGB document,
Open the Pantone solid library,
Apply a color to an object,.
Convert the color to CMYK via the Color palette,
It's not possible to do this. You can only convert spot colors in an
RGB document into RGB. What I think you're doing is clicking on the
color palette's menu (little triangle in a circle on the upper right
corner of the palette) and selecting CMYK. This actually causes the
spot color to be converted to RGB, but shows you the CMYK equivalent of
the RGB value based on the Document's assigned profile (an RGB profile)
as source, and the currently selected CMYK working space as destination.
If you use the eye dropper tool and the Info palette on the object in
question, you will see that it is an RGB object, regardless of what the
Color palette is saying.
Illustrator documents can't contain mixed mode content. An RGB document
can contain only RGB, grayscale and spot objects. A CMYK document can
contain only CMYK, grayscale and spot objects. No RGB and CMYK in the
same document.
You can spec CMYK colors in a RGB document, and RGB colors in an CMYK
document. I realize that converting the color to CMYK in an RGB
document
does not REALLY make it a true CMYK color--but you can SELECT your
colors
that way. I was just pointing out the colors specs will be different.
Of course. None of the Illustrator libraries are based on LAB. They're
based on CMYK equivalents (post May 2000 ones) from Pantone. If you are
in an RGB document and you want that spot color converted to RGB from a
CMYK swatch library, Illustrator grabs the CMYK numbers, and converts
them to RGB. What's the source profile? It *ought* to be something from
Pantone but it isn't. There's an assumed source profile: working CMYK.
The destination profile is the assigned profile for the RGB document.
So right off the bat the conversion to RGB is wrong because the source
profile is wrong. (And then there are the issues of lack of
reversibility and quantization.)
How true. After 22-odd years in the design and production business, I
still
wonder why designers use spot colors for process-color jobs. I use the
spot
color guide for my spot colors, and the process color guide for my CMYK
colors. The only time I use the Solid-to-Process guide is when someone
tells
me their logo has to be Pantone XYZ but the job I'm working on is a
process
job. I call it my "CYA" guide.
Yeah and all of them, even the spot ones, are called "guides."
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
---------------------------------------------------------
Co-author "Real World Color Management"
Published by PeachPit Press (ISBN 0-201-77340-6)
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